Texas based Superintendent Dr. Wanda Bamberg talks about what the Broad Prize Scholarship, stressing that it is often time the only chance impoverished students have at receiving a substantial education. (0:22)
By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
Regarding Arlen Specter changing parties, Congressman Joe Sestak (D-Penn.) said that it’s better for the constituents of Pennsylvania to decide which candidate should win the primary. He feels like the Democratic National Party backing Specter may be giving him too much of an advantage in the Pennsylvania primary. President Barack Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have already committed to personally supporting Specter in his 2010 election. (00:47)
By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
Senator Arlen Specter (Penn.) says that he left the Republican Party because they had stuck their nose into party affairs to the point of breeding extremism. Ironically the Democrats are doing the exact same thing to their newest member. Micromanaging from the highest level doesn’t seem to be exclusive to the Republicans.
Yesterday Specter walked away from the party he has been with for nearly four decades, because he felt they were ignoring moderate voice. Specter announced his decision to defect to the Democratic Party, only the twenty-first time that a Senator has done such a thing since 1890.
President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have both said they will fully support Specter in his 2010 election, but Congressman Joe Sestak (D-Penn.) was not sure that the party establishment should be backing Specter in this way.
“If decisions and candidates are being chosen in Washington, you may just reemphasize that divisive barrier that’s between the parties,” Sestak said. “I think we cannot afford to have a decision that is so important to Pennsylvanians be decided by the party establishment,” and that the voters should be the ones to choose their candidate.
Sestak is rumored to be considering running for the Pennsylvania Senate seat, and would come up against Specter in the Democratic primary. When asked directly, Sestak said he had not decided yet whether or not he would run. Another contender, Representative Allyson Schwartz (D-Penn.) said today that she would not run for the seat.
The republican response has ranged from anger to confusion. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steel likened Specter to Benedict Arnold.
“Clearly, this was an act based on political expediency by a craven politician desperate to keep his Washington power base – not the act of a statesman,” Steel said. “Arlen Specter handed Barack Obama and his band of radical leftists nearly absolute power in the United States Senate.”
Specter responded, “I have not represented the Republican Party, I have represented the people of Pennsylvania.” He was referencing the fact that in the past months there has been an exodus from the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, where over 100,000 individuals changed their party registration from Republican to Democrat.
Specter is defending his position as being one of riding with the tides of his constituency, instead of bowing to the will of a national political party. Critics see it as a survival move of a desperate politician.
Speaking today with President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden, Specter said that staying in the Senate would allow him to carry forward important initiatives for his constituents, speaking specifically about expanding medical research.
Specter would prove to be the 60 Democrat in the Senate, provided that comedian Al Franken prevails in his court case for the Minnesota Senate. Sixty votes, called a supermajority, is enough to override a Republican filibuster. Specter said previously, though, that he was not going to simply back the Democrats automatically, and President Obama acknowledged that, saying, “I don’t expect Arlen to be a rubber stamp.” According to Obama, he and Specter agree in the areas of health care, education, medical research
By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, a long time Republican, talks about the influences he had from Democratic leaders leading up to changing parties, speaking specifically about being influenced by Vice President Joe Biden and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. (00:33)
By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter talks about the importance of having a moderate wing of each party, and how that played into his decision to defect to the Democratic Party. (01:30)
By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter talks about the process involved in deciding to leave the Republican party and join the Democrats. (00:40)
By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, a long-time Republican, is defecting to the Democratic Party. This switch potentially gives Democrats in the Senate more leverage in passing their legislation and overriding Republican filibusters, if Al Franken is found to win the Senate seat in Minnesota. It’s also a crippling blow to the Republican Party, which has been struggling to have its voice heard since the beginning of the 111th Congress.
Specter, 79, is Pennsylvania’s longest serving senator, elected in 1980
Specter said that the increasing “extremism” within the Republican Party over the past few years has put both him and his constituents in a difficult position.
“I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” Specter said. “I think it is very important to have a two party system, and a moderate wing of the two party system…The extremes in both parties are taking over.”
He highlighted the partisanship which was amplified in Congress by the stimulus vote, saying, “it has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable.”
Specter said that his defecting would not make him the “automatic sixtieth vote” for the Democrats, and that he would not be a “party-line voter” who is used to break filibusters.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that he anticipates continued disagreements with Specter, but both of them hope to work together towards common causes. One area that Specter already said he would be opposed to most Democrats on is in reigning in executive power.
Although Specter will run as a Democrat in the 2010 election, he has not decided whether or not he will caucus with the Democrats immediately.
He informed Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) of his decision last night. He then released a written statement at noon today, sending shock waves through the halls of Congress. Specter said that he made the decision gradually over the past few months, and that numerous Democrats encouraged him to defect, including Reid, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Vice President Joe Biden. Reid said that he has been trying to convince other Republicans to switch party as well.
Reid said that both he and President Obama would personally campaign for Specter in his 2010 election after today’s events. When President Obama found out, he reportedly telephoned Specter and welcomed him to the party. Specter was one of the few Republicans to vote for President Obama’s stimulus package and budget.
Commentators are already shouting down Specter’s move as one of political strategy, as the Senator said that he would find a strong challenger in a Republican primary to be a big threat to his career. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) called it “nothing more, nothing less, then political self-preservation.” He continued by saying Specter’s, “Own pollster told him that he could not win the Republican primary in Pennsylvania, so his only options were to leave the Senate or join the Democratic Party.”
“I’m not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate, not prepared to have that record decided by that jury,” Specter said.
Former Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Toomey was seen as a strong candidate who could possibly have defeated Specter in the Republican primary. Additionally, Toomey is widely acknowledged as the more conservative candidate, and Specter said he did not want his career ended in a primary by his own party. He said that the Republicans don’t want moderates anymore, which is why he was being targeted. “There ought to be a rebellion, an uprising,” Specter exclaimed.
Incumbents in Congress have a significant advantage in winning reelection, but Specter was concerned after seeing recent polls. He said that his full constituency does not turn out to vote because the Republican party breeds extremism. Specter said that there are plenty of his constituents who agree with his positions, “but they’re non-participants.”
McConnell called this a “threat to the country,” because it would allow the majority to “have whatever it wants, without restraint, without a check or a balance.”
Reid said that with Specter’s seniority within Congress, it would be as if he were elected as a Democrat in 1980. Reid was careful to say, however, that committee assignments would only be changed voluntarily, and that Specter’s presence on the Democratic side would not bump any other Senators off a particular committee.
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), a longtime friend of Specter, doesn’t believe that this is going to affect judicial confirmations or any potential Supreme Court vacancies that might surface in the near future.
Specter is “just as independent as ever,” Leahy said.
Specter’s said that in his time in the Senate, he has exercised “independent judgment to do what [he] thought was best for Pennsylvania and the nation,” and that it was not his party that defined him.
Updated 5:00pm EST
By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
Piracy is nothing new in Somalia. Every day pirates run free off of Somalia’s nearly 2,000-mile coastline and find haven within this African country which is slightly smaller than Texas. The problem has long been of concern to the U.S. State Department and the United Nations, but it has been gaining special attention once again because of the targeting of American citizens. The hostage situation with American ship captain Richard Phillips caused a nation to hold its breath, and many were in shock when U.S. Congressman Donald Payne (D-NJ) escaped a mortar attack aimed at his airplane in Mogadishu on Monday while the congressman was meeting with government officials.
Maritime piracy has been a lucrative business since the collapse of the Somali government in 1991 and in the thirteen governments to exist since. It can provide quick income for the uneducated and impoverished, and has become a fact of life for companies trading around the Horn of Africa.
The United States has not had full diplomatic ties with Somalia since 1991. Somalia now has a U.S. “Ambassador-at-large” with no formal office in the U.S. from which to work. The Ambassador-at-large, Abdi Awaleh Jama, believes that the violence comes from a “poverty of leadership” in Somalia. Jama said the leaders at the regional and national level don’t serve communal interests but rather favor specific clans or family members.
“The dominant paradigm now is the clan paradigm… not the nation paradigm,” Jama said. He continued, “When there is no law and order, you take the law into your own hands.” Jama said the natural resources in Somalia have been seized by certain clans and used to hold down opposition within the rest of the country.
Jama, who does not fault the sitting Somali president for the country’s condition, said that pirates flourish off the expansive coast because the rule of law has not existed in Somali society in the past decade. When such anarchy is combined with the overflowing poverty, a situation will develop where people will seize “any opportunity they have to make money,” said Jama.
Officials within the Somali government have defended the so-called pirates as being a “coast guard” who protect the country’s resources. Jama dismisses that claim.
“These are criminals who want to make quick money, and who want to just use force, in the name of saving Somalia,” he said. “They are only there to enrich themselves, and to use that gimmick that they are defending Somali resources, which is wrong.”
Joel Carny, an expert from Refugees International, said that Somalia “really hasn’t had a central government that has functioned in so long.” He believes this has led to “warlordism” and opportunity for clan-based regional politics to develop. He called Somalia “an environment in which everyone has to fend for themselves.”
According to Carny, approximately two million Somalis have been displaced due to the violence in the past decade and three million are in need of emergency assistance.
Somalia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Elmi Ahmed Duale, acknowledged in a phone conversation that the violence was taking place and said the government cannot hide it. He hopes for a resolution.
The international community has taken this issue very seriously. The United Nations has had peacekeepers in Somalia at various times since 1991, and most recently the African Union has dedicated resources through AMISOM, their official Mission to Somalia. In February 2009, the United Nations Security Council authorized AMISOM to stay in Somalia for another six months, which places peacekeepers on the ground through August. The United Nations says the goal of this mission is to help establish order and secure human rights.
Recent Somali elections were marked by violence to the point that they had to take place in neighboring Djibouti. Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was elected in January, and shortly thereafter, Ahmed appointed a new prime minister.
Carny is doubtful of the new government’s ability to establish order but thinks that the international community should give the new president a chance. Carney said, “Lets see if [the government] can establish a viable authority… that can at least establish security inside the capitol and then spread from there.” Carney said, however, that “anyone who’s pessimistic about Somalia is probably going to be right.”
Jama wants the United States to help Somalia build a “proper coast guard,” which would replace vigilantism that currently runs the shorelines.
Both Jama and Carny acknowledged that most of the social problems in Africa are rooted in the colonial past, but Carny believes that Africa must move on. “We’re not going to redraw the boundaries in Africa,” said Carny. He suggested that Somalia could be governed regionally through “some kind of Federalism,” as a credible solution for ethnically diverse nations prone to social conflict, civil war and genocide.
“For better or for worse, these countries have to live and work their way out of consequences. When you get good leadership at the national level… things can turn around fairly quickly,” Carny said.
Listen to the audio report here.
By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
Correspondent Michael Ruhl reports on the security and humanitarian crisis presently plaguing Somalia. Ruhl interviews Somalia’s Ambassador-At-Large to the U.S., Abdi Awaleh Jama, and also speaks with Joel Carny from Refugees International.
Read the full article here
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Version 1 [00:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Version 2 [02:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Version 3 [03:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadBy Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service
At a Republican Radio Row, Congressman Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) spoke about President Obama’s budget. He is disappointed at the partisan atmosphere which has swallowed Congress in the budget process and in legislation thus far in this Congress.
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